The electronics industry has become increasingly driven to meet the demands of high-volume consumer applications, which comprise a majority of the embedded systems market. Embedded systems face challenges in producing performance with minimal delay, minimal power consumption, and at minimal cost. As the numbers and types of consumer applications where embedded systems are employed increases, these challenges become even more pressing. Examples of consumer applications where embedded systems are employed include handheld devices, such as cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), global positioning system (GPS) receivers, digital cameras, etc. By their nature, these devices are required to be small, low-power, light-weight, and feature-rich.
As consumer products, these devices also must remain easily attainable and cost competitive. Associated with making devices readily attainable is a need for an efficient, secure, and convenient distribution scheme that maintains protection of proprietary rights for the product manufacturers through proper licensing control without sacrificing financial gain. The present invention addresses such needs.